Peter Hernon - 8.4

Elizabeth shook her head. “John, what happened to him?” She could only imagine what losing his family had done to him, how it must have affected his reason. Their deaths, compounded by the overwhelming destruction he’d lived with for days in Memphis. It was too much for him.

Atkins was in awe of what his friend had done. It left him speechless.

Murray walked to the edge of the hole and stood there, staring down into the blackness. His legs spread slightly for balance, knees bent, he looked perfectly at ease. Weston and Wren also inched forward to take a look. Both quickly stepped back.

Weston said, “That could be a thousand feet deep.”

Murray shook his head. “More,” he said. “I’ve looked down some deep holes in my day. I was listening hard. I didn’t hear that man hit the bottom.”

“What exactly was in the backpack he took with him?” Wren asked Booker. “What’s the damage?”

Booker didn’t answer. Bent over the weapon, he was carefully feeling the casing with his fingertips, searching for bullet holes. One of the slugs had skipped off the metal hard case. The other had penetrated the housing an inch from the weapon’s nuclear package. Booker couldn’t believe it when he saw the hole.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “A bullet from a handgun shouldn’t be able to penetrate a missile’s hard case.” He looked astonished. “If it had hit two inches more to the left, we’d all be dead.”

“From an explosion?” Murray asked.

Booker said, “From plutonium radiation escaping from the primary. We would have received a lethal dose in about two seconds.”

Repeating his earlier question, Wren wanted to know what was in the backpack that Jacobs had grabbed before he went over the edge.

So did Atkins.

“The batteries and timer,” Booker said matter-of-factly. He continued to examine the surface of the bomb.

“Then how are we going to do this?” Wren said in a screaming burst of anger. It was the first time Atkins had seen him lose his composure. Normally easygoing, the young geologist looked like he’d finally reached the breaking point.

“What about the capacitors?” Elizabeth asked.

Booker stood up. “They’re right here,” he said, smiling as he patted the pocket of his heavy jumpsuit. He removed a small package of electrical components. “When all the lights were out, I managed to slip it out of the pack before Walt grabbed it. It’s the only part that’s crucial to the detonation. The only one I couldn’t do without.”

“We still need batteries and a timer,” Atkins said.

“That’s not a significant problem,” Booker said. “We can use batteries from the flashlights. And I’ve got a backup timer. I’d planned for redundancy, at least I thought I had. I can’t believe I forgot to bring a backup for the capacitors.” He frowned. It was almost a fatal oversight. He should have known better, planned better. “I guess I’m older than I thought.”

The ground trembled, an almost imperceptible shift at first, then much harder shaking. The sound of cracking, splintering rock boomed up from the depths of the crevasse. Another tremor hit, a strong sideways motion. Rock fragments fell on them. A cloud of dust formed in the tunnel. They heard a heavy rumble somewhere above them. It sounded like an avalanche.

“That’s a cave-in,” Murray said, coughing in the thick dust. “A big one.”

“How long did it last?” Elizabeth asked. She held a handkerchief over her mouth in the dust. Murray and Booker had dropped to their knees to keep from being knocked down.

“Five seconds,” Atkins said. He’d timed the shaking, the longest since they’d entered the mine.

“Folks, I suggest we switch to plan B and get moving,” Murray said, clearing his throat as the dust settled.

Atkins agreed. The fault’s seismicity was increasing. The pattern closely resembled the one that had preceded the 8.4 earthquake, a series of gradually intensifying preshocks, sometimes coming in flurries. Then the big one.

Booker took four double-A batteries from two flashlights and wrapped them together with tape, attaching them to the capacitors. The batteries would charge the capacitors, which would send an electric current across a bridge wire connected to the detonator.

The timer looked like a digital alarm clock. Booker had carried it in one of his pockets. He wired the timer to an enabling plug on the exterior of the bomb’s hard case.

“It’s time to raise the critical question,” Booker asked. “Do we stick with the original plan and set it for four hours?”

“We might not have four hours,” Elizabeth said. “This fault seems primed to explode.” Like Atkins, she thought a major earthquake was imminent.

“I’d make it longer,” Murray said. “We don’t know what happened above us during that last shake, whether the passageways are still open. And we still need to lower the bomb into this hole. That’s going to take more time.”

“Then considering the differing opinions, I’d suggest we stick to the plan,” Booker said. He pushed two buttons on the timer. One set the hour and minute. The other set the trigger.

Atkins watched the red digits begin to flash on the small device, which tracked the seconds and minutes.

Four hours.

Earlier, it had seemed like plenty of time. It didn’t now.

He turned on the radio and got Steve Draper.

“We’ve started the countdown,” he said.

The radio crackled.

“Then get the hell out of there!”

It was the president’s voice.

Atkins explained they were going to lower the bomb into the crevasse to reach the two-thousand-foot maximum-effect level.

He briefly described what had happened to Walt Jacobs.

There was no answer. Then the radio clicked again. It was Draper.

“Did you feel that last shake?”

Atkins said, “I thought it was going to bury us.”

“It was a mag 5.1, John. Get out of there as fast as you can, pal.”

BOOKER GENTLY SLID THE CAPACITORS AND batteries into a canvas bag, which he looped over the front of the bomb. He lashed it down with cord and tape. Then he and Murray tied a three-hundred-foot length of rope to both ends of the MK/B-61. They wrapped the rope several times around a steel post that had once supported the frame of the collapsed elevator shaft. Murray tied a white handkerchief at the two-hundred-foot mark.

With Booker operating the joysticks, Neutron lifted the bomb, then placed it over the side of the crevasse while Murray, Atkins, and the others held on to the rope, keeping it taut as they slowly lowered the weapon into position.

Atkins stood behind Wren and was surprised at his strength. A thick pack of shoulder muscles moved under his coveralls as he gripped the rope. The geologist was much stronger and fitter than he looked.

“Let it down a little more,” Booker said.

They lowered the bomb a few feet at a time until they reached the handkerchief. They looped the rope around the steel post and tied it down. The entire procedure had taken nearly half an hour.

Atkins went to the edge of the crevasse and took a final look at the bomb as it hung suspended against the rough wall of the trench. He could just make out the red glow of the timer, ticking off the seconds and minutes.

Would it go off on schedule?

Would it be a dud or a misfire?

Was it too powerful, or not powerful enough?

Booker put an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t think about it,” he said, guessing what was on Atkins’ mind. “We’ve done everything we could.”

“I hope so,” Atkins said. He knew you never did everything you could. There was always that small or large detail you forgot, the potential for a screw up.